Newark New Jersey's Global Voice

Love, Pain & Redemption is the debut release of recording artist and Philly native – Nadira Norjahan. The album expresses the transparent story line of experiences that clearly describes the title of this work. Each song screens the continuous saga of sweet romance, trials of life and the victory of survival.

The album gives a clever mix of real life, empathy and fiction, giving a complete testimony that many listeners can’t help but to relate and understand where she’s coming from. The album displays Nadira’s powerful but sultry vocals, her songwriting and poetry. With her poetic pen, Nadira scribes a masterpiece worthy of discussion on various levels of what many women experienced from an early age to adulthood. Topics like domestic abuse, being a single parent, existing in non productive or negative relationships, stepping into your purpose, falling in true love and finding redemption are the multiple conversation pieces this album inspires.

The production and musicianship of the album is credited to SammieBeatz [B2K, 112, Courtney Fadlin, Lovener Walcott] who met Nadira in 2013 and since then collaborated with Nadira to produce the Double A Side projects, a documentary and now her newly released debut album. Musicians featured on the album are – Benny Barksdale Jr. on Saxophone, Ian Chance on Bass and Rod Harris on acoustic/electric guitars. Jon Evans is credited as the mix engineer.

The album contains thirteen songs and three spoken word interludes, a total of sixteen cuts. Highlights of the album include “Comfort,” “Every Breath,” “Luv U 4 My Life,” and a cover of Nina Simone’s “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.”

It looks like the recently revised COPYRIGHT ROYALTY BOARD (CRB) royalty rate for pureplay webcasters has claimed its first victim, as predicted by some in the webcasting community (NET NEWS, 12/23). CHICAGO radio vet RICK O’DELL will shut down his website and online radio station, SMOOTHJAZZCHICAGO.NET on THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31st, CHICAGORADIOANDMEDIA.COM reports.

O’DELL cited two reasons fro the shuttering — the royalty rates and his other job as PD for WRME-LP/87.7 MeTV FM. “Sadly, when you combine the two factors, the diminishing amount of available time to maintain the quality of SJC at a level I feel our listeners deserve and the increasing expenses related to performance royalties, there is no longer any uncertainty about the decision I have to make,” he said. “I cannot continue to operate SMOOTHJAZZCHICAGO. With a heavy heart, I have decided to shut down the station on DECEMBER 31st, 2015. read more

Bridges is the sublime collaboration of 2 of the most renowned instrumentalists in Jazz! Between them, these two smooth jazz artists, saxophonist Eric Marienthal and guitarist Chuck Loeb have either written, produced or performed on more than 50 Top 10 Smooth Jazz radio singles! Both have thrilled audiences around the world for more than 20 years as solo artists and featured artists in various groups: Marienthal with the likes of Chick Corea, The Rippingtons, Keiko Matsui and Jeff Lorber and Loeb as co-leader of Fourplay and Jazz Funk Soul! Bridges represents these Smooth Jazz icons at their best, but it is more than just a Smooth Jazz album. As the title suggests, these smooth jazz artists have bridged the gap between the commercial world of Smooth Jazz, the coolness of New Age music on their new collaboration, and the more artistic explorations that are at the heart of the true jazz experience! Highlights of the 10 Marienthal/Loeb originals include “Crossings,” the ballad and first single, the soulful “Duality,” the romantic “Noir” and much more from these two smooth jazz artists.

About Eric Marienthal: Eric Marienthal is a Grammy Award-winning Los Angeles-based contemporary saxophonist best known for his work in the jazz, jazz fusion, smooth jazz, and pop genres. He has credited his enthusiasm for music on being taught music while in school, and picked up the saxophone in the fourth grade after he thought it looked “pretty cool”. Marienthal has also mentioned his father was a fan of music, particularly 1940s and 1950s such as Boots Randolph, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra.

About Chuck Loeb: Chuck Loeb is a guitarist who performs numerous styles of music, most notably jazz. His own solo projects have generally been commercially successful crossover jazz, such as “contemporary” or “smooth” jazz. He studied with local music teachers until he traveled to Philadelphia where he was a student of jazz guitarist Dennis Sandole and later in New York City with Jim Hall.[4] After studying with Hall for two years, Loeb attended Berklee College of Music for two years. He has playing alongside jazz musicians such as Chico Hamilton, Ray Barreto and Hubert Laws.

According to her mother, Dominique began singing at the age of two. She couldn’t pronounce words as yet, but sang all types of songs and melodies. By age nine Dominique remembers singing in church a lot but by the age of sweet sixteen she had the inclination that music would be a major part of her future. It turns out that she sang at a friend’s birthday party and the attendees were so blown away by her singing, she was encouraged to seriously look into music as a career.

Fast forward to 2015, Dominique gave life to her music dreams with the release of her first single, “Love Is Contagious,” presently available on all digital downloading outlets such as iTunes, Amazon and CDBaby amongst other online stores. The full album is scheduled be released during the second quarter of 2015.

Born into a music family, her mother is a trained classical singer and her father also sings and plays the accordion. Her stepfather is a guitarist and one of her siblings is a former member the group – Committed (Winners of The Sing Off season 2). In high school Dominique specialized in wind instruments (flute, Oboe, saxophone and clarinet) and took part in the marching band.

Her influences include Stevie Wonder, Yolanda Adams and Whitney Houston.

Aside from her music dreams, Dominique is an advocate for children who are less fortunate living in extreme poverty. Her work in mentoring youth and interventions help them develop and implement skills they need to make better choices.

Dominique is also involved in helping children in Haiti who are less fortunate and live in extreme poverty. Her work with Interfaith Humanitarian Services helps build schools in rural areas, mobile clinics and bring awareness to the cause for helping humanity.

Originally from the island of Hispaniola and presently based in Orlando Florida, Dominique is fast becoming one of the premier voices of our time.